Aside from a good 3-day soaking, Tropical Storm Lee brought some fun birds to Louisiana last weekend. The eastern half of Louisiana got a more concentrated dose of storm-driven seabirds than SWLA, but at least a few found themselves over our airspace. These Sooty Terns, from a flock of 6, were possibly following Bayou Vermilion as they worked their way from near the airport into the Spring Hill area of Lafayette.
Apparently about 100 Sooties were reported in Louisiana over the storm weekend (see the eBird map above), with groups as large as 20, 15, and 12. Seeing even one of these seabirds while standing on dry land is a thrill; I was pretty excited to luck onto this group.
The other major player in the seabird sweepstakes was Magnificent Frigatebird. It's hard to tell how many were reported in Louisiana, but it may have been over a thousand. Dave Patton and I had a group of 6 in our neighborhood, and Gary Broussard alerted us to some at Lake Martin. I met Dave at Lake Martin on Sunday afternoon and saw 2 frigatebirds there (Dave also had a jaeger that I arrived too late for).
Again, more frigatebirds were seen on the eastern half of the state than in the west (eBird map below).
Although I can drive to the coast and see one just about any day, my favorite storm bird of the weekend was the single Black Skimmer that flew over my house on Sunday. For some reason, Black Skimmers are hard to find away from the coast--maybe they hunker down in the wind better than other birds. This Black Skimmer was a first for Lafayette Parish.
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